Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
HISTORICAL MATERIALISM ISTANBUL 2026 From Catastrophe to Struggle: Rethinking Capitalism amid Wars and Disasters, İstanbul, Türkiye, 3 - 05 Nisan 2026, (Yayınlanmadı)
This
study investigates the relationship between financialization, profitability,
and real wages in Turkey over the period 2009–2024 by constructing a dataset
that incorporates both household- and firm-level financial dynamics. Drawing on
the methodology of Barbieri Góes et al. (2024), we develop seven indicators of
financialization capturing household credit expansion, consumer
credit-to-income ratios, shareholder value orientation, domestic credit to the
private sector, non-financial corporate borrowing from domestic banks, share of
financial profits, and the rising sectoral weight of finance in value added and
employment. Together, these variables reveal a structural transformation in
Turkey’s growth model, characterized by rapid household indebtedness since the
mid-2000s, increasing leverage among non-financial corporations, and the
deepening penetration of the financial sector. To summarize these dynamics, we
construct an annual financialization index based on standardized values of the
six indicators and apply principal component analysis (PCA). The first
component alone explains 47% of the variance, while the first two account for
nearly 80%, indicating strong comovement among the indicators. The loadings show that corporate
leverage and the financial sector’s share in employment and value added are the
primary drivers of the index, with household debt and shareholder value
orientation contributing more moderately but consistently.
The
resulting financialization index exhibits distinct phases: a relatively subdued
level in 2009–2013, a strong acceleration from 2014 onward, and a peak between
2017 and 2020 driven by intensive credit deepening. A partial unwinding emerges
after 2022 as corporate indebtedness and the financial sector’s relative weight
begin to decline. Using
this index, we estimate a structural VAR model incorporating Marxian profit
rates, real wages, financialization, and output as endogenous variables. The
findings indicate that financialization in Turkey has operated less as a
mechanism for raising profitability and more as a channel of income
redistribution away from labor, shaped by rising indebtedness, interest-rate
policies, and changing corporate governance practices. This study thus
provides new empirical evidence on the macro-financial foundations of Turkey’s
credit-led growth model.